The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in the present disclosure and are not admitted to be prior art by the inclusion in this section.
To manage increased traffic on mobile networks, some mobile network traffic can be accommodated through the use of small cells. A small cell is typically provided through a low-powered radio access node that operates in licensed and unlicensed spectrums. These low-powered radio access nodes have a transmission power that is less than that of a macro node or other high-powered cellular base station. For example, the range of such low-powered radio access nodes is often between ten (10) meters to two (2) kilometers, whereas the range of a macro node might be several tens of kilometers.
The low-powered radio access nodes that are to provide small cells may be embodied in a number of different systems. A common low-powered radio access node is a femtocell cellular base station. A femtocell connects to a service provider's network through a broadband connection (e.g., cable or digital subscriber line), thereby allowing that service provider to extend service coverage indoors or at a cell edge where network access might otherwise be limited. Other common small cells include, among others, picocells and microcells. In order to realize the increased service coverage and/or network capacity provided by a small cell, a user equipment (“UE”) operating on the network may be served by that small cell.